


promises, promises

by puertoricansuperman (orphan_account)



Category: War of the Worlds (2005 Spielberg)
Genre: Family Bonding - freeform, Gen, Missing Scene, angst and misery, lots of hurt and a tiny bit of comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-10
Updated: 2019-12-10
Packaged: 2021-02-26 18:28:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21743014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/puertoricansuperman
Summary: They lose the car. They take refuge in a diner.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 4





	promises, promises

**Author's Note:**

> If you're waiting on the third chapter of _neither one nor the other_ , I'm very sorry, and I promise I'm working on it. In the meantime, here are some sad feelings.

In the diner is where it all overwhelms him. Terror, frustration, weariness, stripping him bare. He is soaked to the skin with rain, throat aching with sobs, the back of his head stinging with what he can only pray isn't a concussion. 

Robbie and Rachel stare at him across the table. They cling to each other, trying to preserve whatever safety and stability they can. Heaven knows he’s never been that to them, never been a father in anything more than name. He’s here with them now. For all the good it’s done them so far. 

Blood trickles from Robbie’s nose. 

There are no more gunshots outside. Just people, walking silently, an endless wave of misery and horror. People hauling whatever they can, clinging to what they have while they have it. None of them are any different. If there was a car, Ray thinks, a car outside, right now, wouldn’t he run after it? What would he do to make sure his children had safe passage through this nightmare?

“What do we do now?” Robbie murmurs. 

His voice is raw and bruised, just like the rest of him. Blood trickles from his nose. Rachel lists against his shoulder, eyes half-closed already. How long have they been sitting here?

“I don’t—” Ray stops himself. There’s no point to it. Not anymore. “I don’t know.” He tries to think further down the road. The ferry. They were going to try for the ferry. If they can just get across the Hudson, then maybe—

“Rachel’s tired,” Robbie says. 

Ray expects her to deny it, to say _I’m not tired_ in the petulant voice he’s heard a thousand times before, but she leaves him waiting. She hasn’t closed her eyes yet, seems to be keeping them open through sheer stubbornness—but she leans against her brother and stares straight ahead and doesn’t react much to anything. She _is_ tired. She’s just too scared to sleep. 

“I’ll carry her,” Ray says. He starts to slide to the end of the bench, out of the booth. Robbie doesn’t move. 

“Where are we going?” he says. His voice is pitch-dark and quiet. It doesn’t sound like him. Doesn’t sound like the kid that puts off his homework and listens to music too loud and hates baseball. It was two days ago that any and all of that mattered, but it feels like another world. 

“The ferry,” Ray says. “We have to get across the Hudson.”

“We have to walk,” Robbie says. Ray waits for it to turn into a complaint, a whine, but it never happens. It’s a statement of fact, flat and exhausted. Robbie took a hit from the mob, too. His nose is still bleeding. He made it into the diner with them, but adrenaline can work miracles. 

“Are you good to walk?” Ray says. He can’t possibly carry both of them—and Robbie has been too big to carry for a long time, now—but they’ll think of something. Ray will think of something. 

“Yeah,” Robbie says. He blinks, and then lifts the back of his hand to his nose, as if just noticing the blood. 

“It’s a nosebleed,” Ray says, uselessly. “Here—” He grabs napkins from the plastic caddy and reaches across the table. Robbie takes the napkins and presses them to his nose. He tips his head forward. “It won’t stop bleeding for a while,” Ray says. 

“Yeah,” Robbie says. “I know. I’ve had a nosebleed before.”

He sounds annoyed again. Like nothing Ray says could possibly matter to him. Ray never thought he would welcome that. 

“I’m sure you have,” Ray says. He looks out the window next to them. More people pass them by, tired, bedraggled, fearful, soaked. He wonders where they all came from. Where they’re going. “We have to go,” he says. 

“Rachel’s asleep,” Robbie says. 

He’s right. Rachel has fallen asleep on Robbie’s shoulder, eyes shut tight, one hand clutching the wet fabric of his jacket. She looks peaceful. 

“I’ll carry her,” Ray says. Robbie nods. He wraps one arm around Rachel and shakes her, just a tiny bit. Rachel starts awake. 

“Robbie?” She blinks. Looks around. “Dad?”

“It’s okay, Rachel,” Robbie says. “We have to go. Dad’s gonna carry you.”

Again Ray expects an argument, and again he’s wrong. Rachel just nods. She climbs out of the booth, with Robbie behind her. Ray stands after them, and picks up his daughter. 

She weighs him down. She’s too big to be carried, ten years old and growing fast. Ray doesn’t care. He lifts her up, holding her close. She puts her head down on his shoulder. Her hair brushes against Ray’s neck, and she wraps her arms around him like she used to do when she was little, and Ray’s chest hurts all of a sudden. 

“Where are we going?” Rachel says. 

“We’re going to cross the Hudson,” Robbie says. He follows Ray to the door of the diner, and peeks out through the rain-streaked glass. He keeps a napkin pressed to his face with one hand. 

“And then we’ll find Mom?” 

Ray’s throat hurts, though he stopped crying a long time ago. “Yeah,” he says. He nudges the door open and steps out into the rain. “Then we’ll find your mom.” 

_And then everything will be alright._ He doesn’t say that. He can’t promise that, anymore than he can promise that they will make it across the Hudson at all. He can’t promise that they’ll make it to Boston, or that they’ll find Mary Ann. Nothing is promised anymore. The world is ending. 

He looks back over his shoulder. Robbie walks close behind them, still holding his nose, watching the crowds around them. Ray watches to see if he limps, if he flinches, but Robbie keeps walking. He keeps looking at the people around him. He stays within arm’s reach of Ray. 

At least no one bothers them, now that they’ve lost the car. 

Rachel falls asleep on Ray’s shoulder. She weighs him down, and Ray’s arms start to numb, as he puts one foot in front of the other over and over again. He can’t stop now; he can’t stop until they reach the ferry. Every step he takes now is one more he won’t have to take later. 

“What if we don’t find Mom?” Robbie says. He keeps his voice low. He doesn’t want to wake Rachel. “What are you going to do?” 

Ray blinks. He hasn’t thought that far ahead yet. He doesn’t want to. He doesn’t want to think about the possibility that Mary Ann is already dead. 

“I don’t know,” he says. “I guess... you’ll be stuck with me.”

“You mean _you’ll_ be stuck with _us_ ,” Robbie says. 

“I think we’ll all be stuck with each other,” Ray says, blinking to keep his eyes open. He was asleep no more than two hours ago. How can he be so tired now? 

Robbie says nothing else. The silence is worrying in its own way, but Ray has enough on his mind without conversation. They will need to eat, eventually. He and Robbie will need to sleep. What if the ferry is already gone? What if they can’t get on board?

Nothing is promised anymore. The world is ending. Maybe, Ray thinks, the end has already come, and they are adrift in the night with nowhere left to go. 


End file.
